F. Paul Wilson’s Repairman Jack novel, Fatal Error,
brims with creeping horror and dread. Like passengers in a roller
coaster slowly but inexorably chugging to the tallest peak of a long
ride, we experience the mounting tension that clutches at our guts.
Cringing, we await the sudden and inevitable heart-thumping plunge we
realize is coming but are powerless to avoid. With only a single
narrative (The Dark at the End) remaining between us and the ultimate chaos of Nightworld, we know that the terror of the Change will soon engulf Jack and his world...and the loved ones he has vowed to protect.

The story begins prosaically — yet
disgustingly — enough as computer programmer Munir Habib exposes
himself one cold winter morning at Fifth Avenue and Central Park in New
York City. He proceeds to urinate in front of the streaming crowds of
people and drivers. What would drive such a seemingly quiet and
unassuming man to such a socially vile act? Oddly enough, his
motivation is similar to Jack’s: to save his wife and son from torture
and death.

Even more coincidentally — or
perhaps not? — the racist maniac who pushes Munir to unspeakable limits
derives boundless joy from the physical and emotional agony he inflicts
on innocent others in much the same way that the Adversary — Rasalom —
does on those whose existences he disrupts or destroys without
reservation or regret.

Given the turmoil in his own life,
Jack is understandably reluctant to become involved in the tribulations
of a stranger who would seemingly be better off utilizing the resources
of the police in solving his problem. After all, Jack is still
concerned for the safety of his childhood friend, “Weezy,” a.k.a.,
Louise Connell (Myers, to the Septimus Order which is still searching
for her). His girlfriend, Gia, and her daughter, Vicky, remain top
priorities, especially given Gia’s vision that the world ends in a few
short months. Then there is Veilleur (Glaeken), one time champion of
the Ally, now an old man reduced to hiding from the enemy he once
conquered; the “Lady” whose death would herald the triumph of the
Otherness; Eddie, Weezy’s naive brother whose impetuous desire to help
his sister threatens not only her life but his own; Jack’s weapon
supplier and old friend, Abe; Dawn Pickering, a young woman Jack
pledged to protect, pawn in the game between the Ally and the Otherness
and mother to a monstrosity; and, well, the entire human race.

In computer lingo, a “fatal error” is a mistake or flaw in a program or operating system from which there is no recovery. In Fatal Error,
the potential destruction of the Internet figures prominently in the
machinations of Rasalom — Mr. Osala — and those like the Kickers and
the Septimus Order who unwittingly or not act on his behalf. The
Internet they plot to take down is the sustaining force behind the
Lady, the only entity (person?) holding the enemy at bay. Kill the one,
Rasalom believes, and he kills the other.

Moving from the virtual to the real
world, a fatal error is a lapse in judgment, a bad decision, a mistaken
action that results in one’s death...and from such an end, there is no
“reboot” possible.

Fatal Error is filled with
examples of individuals on both sides of this cosmic struggle who
commit such irreversible miscalculations. Sometimes the disastrous
course of action is innocent: a misplaced trust; a protective instinct;
a hope of removing a threat; a desire to do good. Other times the
people who tread such fatal paths do so from evil intent. They operate
from an unwarranted confidence in their own power; seek rewards that
are merely illusions, lies to destructive ends; or fail to realize that
there is no honor among thugs, thieves, and murderers.

Anyone who underestimates Repairman
Jack, of course, is begging for trouble. Jack is like a force of
nature: get out of his way or be prepared to suffer the negative
consequences. Even though he prefers simply to live his own life and
indulge such hobbies as collecting old “radio premiums, cereal
giveaways, comic strip tie-ins” (p. 21), when someone or something
threatens his values and those he values, he seeks peace not by running
away but by taking the offensive against those arrayed against him.

Ironically enough, while Jack
chafes under his promise to Veilleur not to take the battle to Rasalom
or try to destroy that enemy, he constantly finds himself attempting to
avoid the amorphous yet all-encompassing State that continues to
tighten its tentacles around its citizens. There is little he can do to
confront a culture that demands he remain unarmed; that he subject
himself to constant surveillance; that he carry identification and
permission from the State to “prove” who he is and what he is allowed
to do. All he can do is seek to game the system, to hide, to lie, to do
what he can to retain the remnants of his wealth, his independence, his
dignity, his life as he wants to live it. Unfortunately, the niche of
breathing space he has carved for himself continues to shrink under the
relentless pressure of a world that — like the Otherness — wants to
control...everything.

On a deeper level, of course, that control is illusory. As Fatal Error
makes abundantly clear when Jack embarks on a seemingly hopeless rescue
trip to LaGuardia Airport, the very advances that make modern life so
comfortable make us exceptionally vulnerable to their disruption in a
way never possible before our technological marvels insinuated
themselves into so many areas of our lives. Maintaining the values that
too many people take for granted — whether those values are such things
as the Internet or modern transportation systems or intangibles like
liberty and love — requires constant work and diligence. Destruction —
death — is easy. Any fool or charlatan or demon can achieve such goals.
Unfortunately for them — and the rest of us — by the time such sick
souls realize their fatal error in believing they can benefit in the
long run from the obliteration of the good, it will be too late for far
too many people.

In Fatal Error, Wilson drags
the reader along a road fraught with fear and deadly surprises.
Uncomfortable though such a trek can often be, in the end, the journey
is worth the cost. In the face of such mortal tribulations, people have
two choices: to cower from those who seek and thrill at our submission
or to collide with such heinous forces head-on and to know that,
whether we succeed or fail, at least we — like Repairman Jack — valued
our lives enough to fight for our world with all the strength we
possess.